Cabin Fever: New Delta Cabin Announced – Delta Premium

Since Eva Air first introduced a differentiated economy class, airlines have been jumping on the bandwagon to offer a service that sits between business class, which can cost thousands of dollars, and coach, which can be immensely uncomfortable. While many European and Asian airlines offer an actual premium economy class that is actually different from its coach counterpart (better seats, amenity kits, plus bonus elite qualifying miles), American carriers have only offered “premium economy cabins” that only have more legroom, with the same seats and no extra bonuses. American Airlines debuted this cabin in October, and today Delta announced they’d be upgrading their Delta Comfort+ cabins to a brand new cabin – branded as Delta Premium.

Delta’s new Premium cabin. Credit: Delta

The new cabin will be available on Delta’s new A350s, which will also feature the new Delta One Suites, and are expected to launch in Fall 2017. The seats will be retrofitted onto Delta’s 777 fleet in 2018. We can expect to see some great changes to the service:

Seats up to 19 inches wide, up to 38 inches of pitch, and up to 7 inches of recline (plus adjustable leg and head rests)

Westin Heavenly In-Flight Blanket

Tumi Amenity Kits with Malin+Goetz travel sized toiletries

Pre-departure beverage service plus a seasonal menu

Delta’s new Premium cabin. Credit: Delta

Since we’ll be initially seeing this cabin only on the A350s and Boeing 777s – long-range wide-body planes that service long-haul flights, it sounds like this class of service will be available on international flights, so don’t expect to see this on a domestic trip – at least for now.

Overall, these changes sound great. The seat dimensions are comparable to other airlines’ Premium Economy cabins, as does the service. I’m looking forward to seeing exactly what the “seasonal menu” will offer.

Of course, the only thing I want to know is – can Medallions earn MQMs at a 150% rate like on other international carriers?